1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to audio trigger devices.
2. Description of Prior Art
The invention relates more particularly to an audio trigger control method and hand-holdable audio trigger devices to independently control some other equipment to change a setting or act as a command signal for example. Depending on the different applications of the audio trigger control, it can be used for a relatively short distance or a relatively large distance as will be explained more fully below.
A particular application for an audio trigger device of the the present invention is a computer slide presentation. At present during a presentation, a sequence of slides can be controlled mainly by three commands including xe2x80x98next slidexe2x80x99, xe2x80x98previous slidexe2x80x99 and xe2x80x98slide selectionxe2x80x99; the command xe2x80x98next slidexe2x80x99 is used the most often. Every computer presentation software normally has at present three commands achieved by keystrokes or mouse actions or their combinations. Apparatas known no the art to input these commands include: a keyboard, a mouse, and a voice control interface. Besides wired keyboards and mice that are used to control a computer slide presentation, various wireless mice or pointing devices are used for controlling the presentation. The wireless functions of the devices are achieved using radio frequency (RF) or infrared transmitting technologies. When using a voice control interface, the presenter""s voice is received by a microphone in the computer and patterns of the voice signals are detected for deriving, commands to simulate corresponding keystroke or mouse actions.
One drawback of an infrared pointing device is that it should point directly at the receiver, and a limited controlling distance is another drawback. A drawback of an RF pointing device is its comparative expense. Also, different countries may allow use of different frequency bands and transmitting powers for the RF pointing device. This makes a specific RF pointing device inapplicable internationally. To avoid interfering with other RF devices, the RF pointing device is inhibited for use in some situations, such as in aeroplanes during flying. In addition, the RF or infrared receivers may have to be physically connected to the computer by wires.
With voice control, audiences may by disturbed and confused and fluency of the presentation interrupted by commands to the computer, especially when the computer cannot immediately correctly derive the command. If voice control is used, the equipment must be trained for every presenter and advised which presenter is using the equipment. When there is a lot of background noise, the efficiency of voice control interface is often very poor.
It is an object of this invention to overcome or at least reduce this problem.
According to the invention there is provided a trigger control system comprising of an audio trigger device having a number of buttons that can be depressed to create different audio signals with different features, and a main equipment that has an audio channel to collect audio signals, in which the features are detected by the main equipment as commands for altering or controlling operation of the main equipment.
The audio trigger signals may be generated by electrical circuits, or mechanical means, for examples, by sound pipes mounted on the device.
The audio trigger signals may be generated by a mobile phone that can generate touch tones with different frequencies by depressing key pads.
The different features may be coded in frequency domain and/or time domain.
A trigger computer presentation control system may be provided including an audio trigger device having a number of buttons that can be depressed to create different audio signals with different features, and a computer running a slide presentation software that has an audio channel to collect sound signals, in which the features are detected by the computer as commands for controlling the progress of the slide presentation by simulating keystrokes, mouse actions, or their combinations for the control commands of the presentation software.
A trigger computer control system may be provided comprising a laser pointing means and an audio trigger generating means having a number of buttons, one of which can be depressed to activate the laser pointing mean to generate laser beam for pointing purpose, and others of which can be depressed to activate audio trigger generating means to create audio signals with different features for the computer, in which the signals act as command signals for altering or controlling operation of the computer.
An audio trigger control system may be provided including a microphone for receiving aural presentation sounds of a user, a main equipment including an amplifying circuit and a loudspeaker, an audio trigger device that can generate trigger signals with different features by depressing a number of buttons mounted on a surface of the microphone, a communication channel connecting the microphone to the main equipment for transmitting the aural presentation and the trigger signals to the main equipment, which the transmitted trigger signals are detected and act as command signals for altering or controlling operation of the main equipment, including altering or controlling the effective amplification to adjust presentation sound outputs of the loudspeaker.
The communication channel is preferably a radio channel.